Category results for "Industry-Research"

Industry Research

Survey finds newsrooms are monitoring metrics, not acting on them

August 29, 2016 DCN

Nearly all newsrooms monitor digital metrics, but many miss out on opportunities to learn from the data they collect, according to a new survey of news editors and directors by the Engaging News Project at The University of Texas at Austin.

Overall, 87% of news organizations monitor website metrics like page views or unique visitors, according to the survey of 525 editors and directors from U.S. newspapers, television and radio stations and news websites.

“Almost everyone is doing monitoring,” said Talia Stroud, director of the Engaging News Project. But in many newsrooms, that’s where analytics work stops.

Few news editors and directors report using the data they collect to actually help solve newsrooms problems — around audience engagement, page design or revenue development, for example. For the most part, that’s a missed opportunity to draw useful lessons from analytics.

“The part to me that was just so interesting, there’s a use of these metrics, but not the second part, testing, learning,” Stroud said.

Measuring And Learning From Audience Engagement
The Engaging News Project survey asked about two common strategies for improving audience engagement: A/B testing and partnering with researchers.

Television stations are the most likely to employ both strategies. The survey found 55% of television stations partnered with researchers, and 24% used A/B testing.

On the opposite end, just 12% of newspapers partnered with researchers and a meager 5% employed A/B testing. They survey allowed respondents to self-identify the medium, such as newspapers, that was the highest priority for their news organization.

From the report:

“For several of these practices, we think that there’s a lost opportunity. For A/B testing in particular, the use of this practice can help to inform newsroom practices based on audience preferences.

Stroud pointed out that a high percentage of survey respondents, including editors and publishers, couldn’t answer whether or not they were using A/B testing. That suggests to her an opportunity as well as a need for further education.

“There’s a lot of work to be done to show what the benefits are,” Stroud said. Newsroom culture and technology both present hurdles.

The study isn’t a representative sample, Stroud cautions, but as a snapshot of newsroom practices, it’s a useful data point for researchers.

Other Ways Audience Metrics Are Being Used
The survey also asked editors and directors about several common audience engagement practices and found that television stations are most likely to reward performance based on metrics, followed by digital outlets:

Between four and six in ten newsrooms has an audience engagement person on staff. The job titles for that role are anything but consistent, reflecting the gray area in which engagement staff often work. The three most common titles — audience development director, engagement editor, and community editor — make up just 46% of the total.

On the other hand, more than one in ten news organizations surveyed — and 17% of newspaper newsrooms — didn’t report monitoring website metrics at all, perhaps a result of the survey sample, more than half of which were newspapers with fewer than 25,000 weekly circulation.

How Newsrooms And Researchers Can Work Together
Researchers from the Engaging News Project have worked with real newsroom data before, from the influence of clickbait headlines to an analysis of 9 million comments from the New York Times.

Stroud’s advice to newsrooms that aren’t yet working with researchers is to simply reach out, especially if there is a university in your market with a journalism or communications programs. And come prepared with questions your newsroom has, she said. Not every newsroom problem will be of interest to researchers and what researchers are interested in may not solve immediate newsroom problems, but there will likely be a sweet spot in the middle.

“What questions does your newsroom have? Bring those to the table, say ‘What do you think?’” Stroud said.

The full Survey of News Editors and Directors can be found on the Engaging News Project website, along with more of the team’s news audience engagement research.

Jason Alcorn (@jasonalcorn) is the Metrics Editor for MediaShift. In addition to his work with MediaShift, he is an analyst with the Media Impact Project and works as a consultant with non-profits and newsrooms.

This article was originally posted on MediaShift, the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. Follow MediaShift on Twitter @mediashiftorg, or check them out on Facebook and subscribe to their email newsletters.

Industry-Research

Buying, renting videos by title is not making the leap to digital

August 26, 2016 DCN

“All-access” subscription services are displacing spending on individual movies. According to a study by GfK, the desire to seek out and purchase content purposefully is giving way to a subscription mindset in a digital world. With so much content now available at will via online and subscription video services, ownership and renting of individual titles is becoming increasingly rare.

However, the report, offered as part of GfK’s The Home Technology Monitor™, shows that many consumers continue to prize their DVDs and other physical media, with their “Director’s Cuts,” audio commentaries, and other special features. They find that members of this viewer segment are less likely to add to their video libraries with intangible digital copies, suggesting that marketers need to be more proactive in understanding and reaching out to videophiles.

According to the study, less than half (46%) of consumers say they have ever purchased or rented a digital-only copy of a TV program or movie, compared with 86% who have ever bought or rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and 78% for VHS tapes. Among “digital-never” consumers – those who have never bought or rented a digital program or movie – 70% have bought or rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and 68% have done the same with a VHS tape.

In the study, at least two thirds of “digital nevers” mentioned the availability of an SVOD service as an important reason for not buying digital copies of individual titles. Key consumer concerns about digital-only formats include difficulty of use, inability to access all content across all devices, and need for an Internet connection to view.

Among those who do rent digital movies, 33% do so monthly, compared with a 60% frequency for those who rented VHS or disc movies in the past. Not only are consumers reporting fewer overall digital transactions, but also less frequency among those who are buying digital video.

The study also shows that, even though 37% of respondents had purchased DVD or Blu-ray discs that included access to a digital-only version of the video, two-thirds of these buyers have never activated the digital content – mostly because they have “no need” for it or are just “not interested.”

GfK’s report, “Physical versus Digital Video: A Tale of Three Media,” is based on interviews with 1,006 consumers on GfK’s KnowledgePanel®, which combines the capabilities of web-based interviewing with robust probability-based samples.

Industry-Research

What news publishers’ risk in social distribution

August 24, 2016 DCN

Traffic from Facebook to some of the top news publishers declined at double-digit rates in the second quarter this year according to SimilarWeb’s quarterly web analytics report. SimilarWeb found that Facebook visits to some media companies were down by as much as 50% compared with first quarter metrics.

While some dispute SimilarWeb’s data, other analytic and measurement companies also noted declines in Facebook’s traffic to news sites. One explanation for this decline is the consumer shift from desktop usage to mobile. SimilarWeb is based on desktop only measurement and does not capture the approximately 1.4 billion mobile users accessing Facebook from a mobile device.

Another reason for Facebook’s decline in distributed traffic is due to Facebook’s announcement earlier this year that it was going to emphasize more posts from a user’s family and friends and no longer highlight articles from mainstream media sites. Facebook’s Zuckerberg announced, “Facebook was built on the idea of connecting people with their friends and family. That is still the driving principle of News Feed today. Our top priority is keeping you connected to the people, places and things you want to be connected to — starting with the people you are friends with on Facebook.”

Facebook’s change in sites ranking algorithms likely impacted traffic to news publishers. The consequences to the Facebook announcement can be seen in July’s ranker. Clearly Facebook’s key goal is to keep users on its site longer. That does not necessarily align with providing quality content from branded news publishers.

Similarly, an article from the Columbia Journalism Review, “Facebook is Eating the World,” clearly identifies the publishers’ predicament: “Now the news is filtered through algorithms and platforms which are opaque and unpredictable.” Publishers are losing control of distribution and increasingly reliant on traffic from social platforms which can be fantastic or deadly to their ad sales business. It’s important for news publishers to build additional businesses and revenues away from distributed platforms. It’s essential for publishers to think in terms of audience engagement measurement rather than scale.

Industry-Research

Local publishers meet consumer expectations

August 17, 2016 Lisa Abourezk, SVP Market Development – DCN

Newspaper publishers appear certain that consumers still value local newspapers for their quality and trustworthy content. In fact, four in 10 publishers (40%) report overall confidence in the strength of the newspaper industry compared to other news sources according to the recently released 2016 HubCiti Publishers’ Confidence & Technology Report.

At least 33% of newspaper publishers think that the industry is getting better. What’s contributing to this confidence? For publishers it’s most likely the new digital and social products offer strong opportunities to monetize news content. As for consumers, easy access to engaging content at their fingertips is a sure winner.

Moreover, 41% of respondents stated they prefer a digital version of print content compared to 26% that said they like to search for specific content. In addition, 36% of consumer respondents reported that they mainly receive their local news from TV, and 23% said from online news aggregators.

Digital is a popular consumer access point for newspaper content. Consumers of news reported that they are more likely to view news on a mobile app or website than print. Only one in 10 respondents (8%) stated they are tolerant to watch an ad in order to read an article or watch a video, compared to 28% that would not watch an ad at all. Further, close to two-thirds of respondents (60%) said they would not pay for special digital content.

While subscriptions and advertising are still primary revenue sources for publishers, new monetization streams offer healthy opportunities. Not surprisingly, nine in 10 publisher respondents (87%) ranked print ads and classifieds as very important to revenue generation with subscriptions and website revenues ranking second (74%) and third (64%). Publishers also reported that they plan to see a 50% increase in revenue from both website and mobile app activity in the next 12 months. Almost forty percent of publishers plan to hire new employees for digital service implementations, with 54% planning to also hire a third party firm.

Local publishers are clearly ramping up their digital services and seeking third party relationships to meet market and consumer expectations. In doing so, they are also expanding their local offering to reach smaller and active communities. Experimentation for publishers is key to determine news content that is both engaging to consumers and offers opportunities for monetization.

*Important to note this online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Report: http://hubcitiforms.com/appsites/video/con_tech_report.pdf

Industry-Research | Marketing

Time for marketers to up their emoji game

August 15, 2016 DCN

Giving your audience what they want, when and how they want it has become the first tenet of effective marketing. But your audience also increasingly craves experiences (even preferring it over discounts, coupons and cash)—a development that turns the pressure up on companies to spark emotive, creative and personal communications that strike a chord.

It’s here that emojis—the fun smileys and pictographs that have become the fabric of how we engage and exchange across social networks and messaging—are bridging the gap, driving new levels of engagement delivered with a distinctly personal touch.

Emojis have evolved into a new, visual language, powering campaigns and communications by a wide range of media companies and brands including Disney, NASCAR, VH1and Warner Bros., to name a few. In fact emojis are so popular that Sony Pictures Animation is targeting an August 2017 release of a movie that brings the entire emoji library to life.

Emojis clearly cover the bases to quality as a new communication medium, which is why it’s critical to understand when and how to use them in campaigns and messaging. Miss a cue and customers could begin to experience what Ad Age calls emoji messaging fatigue.

In this vein, Appboy, a company that offers a customer relationship suite for mobile-first marketers, has released new research that delves into the emoji-as-a-medium phenomenon. In addition to quantifying the use and response to emojis in marketing messages, the research also draws on a survey of 500+ consumers in the U.K. and the U.S. to understand people’s perception of emojis in personal communications.

Predictably, respondents ages 14-24—a population well accustomed to using mobile, messaging and the emojis that have been around since the 1990s—use emojis “more often and frequently than users over the age of 45. But younger audiences aren’t just open to using this medium for messaging among themselves; they also have a more positive perception of brands that use emojis to connect with them directly.

It also comes as no surprise that younger audiences, weaned on SMS, are “more open” to emoji messages that arrive via text messaging than emojis that are delivered by email.

Overall, males are more likely that females to have a negative perception of emoji—no matter how they are delivered. This makes sense if we consider that females are also the biggest users of social media and the biggest fans of communication in all its forms and formats.

This is why Appboy suggests companies might be missing out on the opportunity to communicate with female consumers in a way that is more aligned with their preference for emojis. Despite the fact that females use emojis more than males, nearly 40% recall never receiving an emoji message from a brand. Appboy reads this to mean that “there could be an opportunity for brands to up their emoji game as a third of [all] consumers have never received an emoji message from a brand.”

The data around usage and conversion confirms emoji messaging could be more than a missed opportunity. It may also be the most effective way to personalize communications and campaigns.

A review of over 250 apps and 6 billion push notification and messages that were sent via the Appboy platform from June 2015 to June 2016 shows:

Conversion rates are up 135% year-over-year and have hit “an all time high”
Open rates on emoji messages delivered as push notifications reached 4% on Android in June 2016—068% higher than June 2015. Meantime, open rates on Apple’s IOS have been fluctuating between 1-2%—reaching levels in June 2016 that represent up to 209% uplift over June 2015.
Emoji use in email subject lines may lag behind use in push notification, but emails are seeing higher open rates, increasing 15% year-over-year. But while emojis may be eye-catching their presence in the subject head doesn’t appear to influence actual click through rates.

Connect the dots, and there are plenty of good reasons for companies to get more active—and smarter—about how they use emojis in their messaging and marketing. But the meteoric rise of emoji use and its positive perception among a significant percentage of consumers is no reason to ignore best practice. Emojis may liven up the “conversation” but companies still need to ensure they deliver messages people will appreciate, not dismiss as spam.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

Industry-Research

Publishers increase mobile investment

August 10, 2016 DCN

Mobile is an ever-increasingly important platform in digital publishing as consumers spend more time on their devices. In fact, three-quarter of publishers (75%) stated they will increase their mobile investment in the next 12 months, reported AOL’s 2016 Publisher Outlook Report, which surveyed 300 publishers in the U.S.

Further, nearly half of the publishers plan on increasing their mobile investment up to 25% more and 10% plan on increasing their investment from 50-100% more in the next 12 months. Publishers also anticipate video ad sales to be the top revenue performer of the year.

Ad blockers, quality creative and quality experiences are top challenges publishers face today, while better audience metrics, interactive and engaging ad units, mobile-first video and faster ad loads offer big opportunities.

Publishers rank their biggest mobile opportunities as:

Better audience metrics – 43%
Interactive, engaging ad units – 43%
Mobile-first video (creative and formatting) – 42%
Faster ad loads – 42%
More mobile web-based content – 42%
Cross-screen tracking and measurement – 40%
Customized / personalized creative – 39%
More app offerings – 38%
Mobile commerce – 38%
Gamification of content – 27%

And rank their primary challenges as:

Ad blockers – 49%
Quality of consumer experience – 44%
Quality of content/creative – 42%
App installations – 38%
Measurement deficits – 31%
Platform and service costs – 30%
Off platform monetization – 30%
Off network traffic / audience – 27%
Lagging advertising spend – 27%
Inadequate revenue/ROI – 24%

Distribution platforms for content have also emerged this year. Companies like Facebook, Apple, Twitter and Snapchat are all trying to attract readers to keep using their platforms while consuming publisher’s content. Over 90% of publishers believe distributed media has had a positive effect; 53% report it’s “extremely positive.” By and large, publishers also said that syndication is vital with approximately 25-50% of their traffic coming via syndication referrals.

More and more publishers are increasingly assessing new and alternative monetization strategies beyond advertising. For now, more than 75% of publishers pursue subscription and ad supported business models. Of those focused on subscriptions, over 75% expect to grow their subscription choices in the next 12 months.

While publishers are still very dependent on advertising revenue, the way of doing business has changed. Seven in 10 publishers (71%) sell inventory via programmatic with many using a private marketplace. Private marketplaces allow publishers to offer their own inventory to buyers in a more transparent and controlled environment. More than half of publishers (56%) depend on at least one private marketplace and 28% use multiple PMPs.

Publishers continue to evolve with the times, building new technologies, developing new revenue sources and even creating internal agencies to develop new creative. Publishers must continue to re-think how people are consuming content, how to deliver it, how it lives across platform and how to monetize it beyond advertising dollars.

Industry-Research

Streaming dominates video content piracy

August 3, 2016 DCN

At least since the Sony Betamax case, content creators and the law have struggled to keep up with the technological advances in piracy. Just this year, HBO hired anti-piracy partner, IP-Echelon, which sent out thousands of copyright warnings for alleged piracy of its popular series “Game of Thrones” to internet service providers. The warnings contained the IP addresses of users suspected of sharing “Thrones” episodes. HBO’s and IP Echelon are still monitoring this situation and consider it critical to their business.

It turns out that online video streaming is now the primary means of pirating video content. In contrast, a decade ago peer-to-peer file sharing via torrent websites was the top method to download pirated video files. New data from the MUSO’s Global Film & TV Piracy Market Insight Report 2016 provides data showing pirate streaming sites had more than 57 billion visits last year. Out of the total 78 billion film and television piracy site visits, 74% of all visits to piracy sites were to those that stream content illegally.

MUSO’s analysis reports on over 14,000 visits to the main global piracy websites from 226 countries. Overall, MUSO tracked 141 billion visits to pirate sites last year. The U.S. tops the list of video pirate visits, representing 12% of total traffic, almost 10 billion visits. France, Germany and the UK are all included in the top 10 countries globally based on total piracy visits.

Torrent site traffic has shown gradual decline for illegal video content consumption. Approximately 17% of the piracy traffic went to torrent sites and direct download sites accounted for 8% of video piracy visits. Users predominately use desktops on both streaming pirate sites and torrent sites, 72% and 77%, respectively. Therefore, mobile piracy remains comparatively small. Interestingly, mobile download registered a slight increase (5%) in visits from the first 6 months to the visits from the last 6 months in 2015. However, the usage of downloads was still relatively low, compared to torrents and streaming traffic. Overall, the piracy environment is engaging in streaming consumption versus content downloading or sharing. However, piracy tactics have not transitioned to mobile at the same pace as other content consumption habits.

Industry-Research

Marketers increasingly favor viewability and third-party verification

August 2, 2016 Research Team

The majority of advertisers chose viewabilty as their campaign objective, followed by click thru rate and view thru rate according to a study by data software company Videology. Of all campaigns that ran on the Videology platform in Q2 2016, 43% used viewable rate as an objective KPI. Of those campaigns, 89% chose to measure viewability using the MRC standard (50% of pixels on screen for at least two consecutive seconds) while the additional 11% chose to use their own custom standard for determining if an ad was viewable.

Advertisers continue to emphasize demographic, geographical and behavioral data to target their campaigns. Over half of all campaigns Videology analyzed used behavioral targeting, while TV Viewing accounted for 14%, with advertisers looking to add incremental reach to their TV buys. It is interesting to note that more marketers are emphasizing the need for in-demo delivery of campaigns, a metric originating from the traditional methods of non-programmatic TV buying; Videology has seen a 115% year-over-year increase in the number of campaigns using Nielsen or comScore to measure in-demo targeting success.

Cross-screen advertising saw a 20% year-over-year increase (compared to Q2 2015), with the bulk of the activity consisting of combined PC, mobile, and connected TV placements. Campaigns using PC alone made up just 12%, a fraction of where this was one year ago when they made up a quarter of all placements.

Industry-Research | Marketing | Revenue

Mobile conversions climb, but cross-device is still a hike

July 29, 2016 DCN

With consumers expecting—even demanding—the flexibility to shift seamlessly between smartphones, desktops and tablets, the pressure is on marketers and publishers to customize experiences to “go with the flow.”

But it’s not enough to adapt advertising to accompany customers as they move across devices and across platforms. To maximize investments and conversions companies must also understand the strengths and weaknesses of each individual channel, stay current with consumer usage trends and combine these insights to architect an effective cross-device, cross-channel strategy.

This is where Mobile Advertising Around the Globe 2016, the annual report produced by Marin Software Incorporated, a cross-channel, cross-device performance advertising cloud provider for advertisers and agencies, sheds important light on spend, performance and usage across the channels that define the consumer journey.

Vendor spin aside, the research, drawn from a sample of advertisers who invest more than $7 billion in annualized ad spend on the Marin platform, provides marketers a solid benchmark chock-full of facts and actionable recommendations for optimizing advertising and approaches in order to reach and engage consumers across search, social and display.

However, it’s also important to keep in mind that the findings—because Marin Software’s client bases consists largely of companies spending upwards of $100K on paid search, social and display—are likely biased towards larger advertisers and may not reflect the trends small and medium-size businesses need to have top of mind.

In a nutshell, the report data:

Shows YoY performance by channel and device
Details how consumer behaviors are affecting desktop and mobile spend
Lists best practices for optimizing mobile advertising across channels

Significantly, the report also calls out mobile app advertising as a must, noting that apps “already account for almost 90% of all time spent on mobile devices” with more than half (60%) of mobile users saying they use apps on a daily basis. This, the report stresses, makes mobile apps advertising an important tool in any marketer’s toolbox, with in-app ads an important way to reach consumers and engage them.” This goes double for social media, as Facebook is the most used app on smartphones and tablets.

Effective advertising targets audiences on the platforms they prefer, and that platform is increasingly mobile. The report notes a “steady shift” in click share away from desktops to smartphones. While this finding won’t come as much of a surprise for seasoned marketers that “get” mobile, report data that shows tablet click behavior “has been relatively flat” is an eye-opener.

In one year, (comparing December 2014 versus 2015) smartphone click share grew by over half, from 22% of global search clicks to 35%. However, the report points out this growth didn’t come at the expense of desktop usage. “Rather, tablet usage is decreasing and smartphones are not taking more click share away from tablets than desktops.” Read between the lines, and it seems that tablets are losing some of their appeal, which is a natural outcome of the massive increase in smartphone adoption and use worldwide.

When it comes to display, click behavior is flat for tablets, holding steady at around the 10%. By end-2015, the vast majority (71%) of all display ad clicks were on a smartphone and the report forecasts this trend to continue this year.

By the end of this year the report predicts that “smartphone share will overtake desktop spend share, with 45% of all ad dollars being spent on smartphone, slightly edging ahead of desktops.”

Similar to click share, social spend is also heavily mobile-centric. (This makes sense as recent research from comScore reveals nearly 80% of social media time now spent on mobile devices.)

Clearly, mobile devices are attracting more “eyeballs” and chalking up more clicks than ever before—a development that should help advertisers and publishers prioritize how and where they allocate their budgets. The report correctly advises marketers to stay current new ad formats and innovations such as video and banner ads tailored for more effective and engaging mobile display.

But it’s not enough to use new ads formats to enhance the overall advertising experience. Companies are also advised to sharpen targeting across channels (and tracking technology to monitor results) in order to increase consumer awareness and keep a lid on costs.

Industry-Research

Hispanic digital divide narrows

July 27, 2016 DCN

The Hispanic population, now at 55 million, is one of the fastest and youngest growing groups in the U.S. today. As a key demographic, Hispanics have narrowed the digital divide with adult internet usage at 84%, up from 64% in 2009. While internet usage also grew among white adults (from 80% in 2009 to 89% in 2015) and black adults (from 72% to 81%); use among Hispanics grew at a much faster rate. In addition, the gap in internet usage between Hispanics and whites decreased to 8% from 16% in 2009 according to a Pew Research Center report, “Digital Divide Narrows for Latinos as More Spanish Speakers and Immigrants Go Online.”

It’s not just the English-dominant Hispanics (94%) who are online but also bilingual Hispanics (86%) have internet access, up from 87% and 76%, respectively in 2009. Further three-quarters of Spanish-dominant Hispanics (76%) are also internet users and registered the most growth from 36% in 2009. Interestingly, most of the change in Hispanic internet use took place in the last three years among foreign born Hispanics.

Not surprisingly, younger Hispanics are more likely to be online than older adults. Nine in 10 of Hispanic adults 18-29 (95%) and Hispanic adults 30-49 (93%) are more likely to be online than older Hispanic, ages 50-64 (67%) and ages 65+ (42%).

Mobile access is the majority of Hispanics connect to the internet. Eighty percent of Hispanic adults reported using a mobile device, cellphone, smartphone or tablet, to access the internet. A full nine in 10 of younger Hispanic adults, ages 18-29 (94%) use their mobile device for internet access.

In terms of connecting at home, half of Hispanics adults (46%) reported that they use a broadband connection to access the internet. Surprisingly, while internet usage among Hispanic has increased, broadband access has shown little growth since 2010 when it was at 45%.

The fact that the Hispanic digital divide is closing is an important factor for companies to think about when exploring marketing tactics to target this key demographic group. The Hispanic audience is a fully engaged digital audience and often attracted by the social offerings of digital technology. Now more than ever before there is an opportunity to reach a full Hispanic audience across digital platforms.

Industry-Research

Data powers digital media

July 26, 2016 Research Team—DCN

Shifting from the tactics of next-generation data analytics to converting corporate cultures to being data-first is the emerging great challenge for media companies battling for consumer and advertiser relevance, according to a report released by the International News Media Association (INMA).“Big Data For Media 2.0: Going Data-First” synthesizes case studies shared with INMA through a co-hosted Big Data For Media conference and study tour, along with best practices from association members. The report features eight video interviews INMA conducted with Big Data innovators at five media companies.

Companies featured in the INMA report include Axel Springer, Dow Jones, Financial Times, Forbes Media, Hearst, The New York Times, Schibsted, The Washington Post, and The Weather Channel. Based upon the best practices at these media companies, author Martha L. Stone of the World Newsmedia Network (WNMN) makes the case that data-first strategies are yielding better outcomes and better results.

That said, she finds that even major media companies are facing cultural challenges in implementing these company-wide data-first strategies. However, the central role of data in the modern media company is highlighted by Rick McFarland, chief data scientist at Hearst Corp., who is quoted as saying: “Hearst is not in the publishing business or even in the media business. It is really in the data distribution business. Data is the gasoline” that fuels the business.

Overall, the report categorizes data-centric practices as being synonymous with customer-first strategies. Based upon her synthesis of the case studies and best practices, Stone says that her overall impression is one of “companies leading a cultural revolution” — with some succeeding faster than others.

The report examines:

Why Big Data is important at media companies and how different types of analytics are being applied

Who innovative media companies are in Big Data — and why

The process of developing the media company’s data operation

How companies implement a culture of experimentation using data

How leading media companies are structuring and staffing their data departments

The pending onslaught of data regulations

Results from the latest Big Data For Media Survey — including what media companies are doing with analytics and how that is changing

How best to generate revenue using data analytics

“Media companies are in the data distribution business and data is the gasoline,” said Earl J. Wilkinson, executive director and CEO of INMA, paraphrasing one of the executives interviewed in the report. “What we see among the industry leaders is Big Data not as a tactic to grow subscriptions but as a catalyst for fundamental culture change. This report is a snapshot in that revolution.”